Eisha Jain

Henry P. Brandis Distinguished Professor of Law

Email
ejain@email.unc.edu
Work
(919) 843-9529
Social
@jain_eisha
Curriculum Vitae Download Photo

Areas of Expertise

  • Criminal Law
  • Criminal Procedure
  • Immigration Law
  • Public Interest Law

Biography

Eisha Jain is the Henry P. Brandis Distinguished Professor of Law. Her teaching and research interests include criminal law, immigration law, collateral consequences, policing, and criminal records. In 2025, she was awarded UNC Law’s outstanding teaching award. Her scholarship has been published widely in leading law journals, including the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, and the Georgetown Law Journal, among others. She developed and leads the annual Carolina Law Scholarship Roundtable, which brings innovative scholars to Carolina Law to workshop books and other works-in-progress.

Jain previously worked as a civil rights lawyer, where she worked on a number of trial and appellate matters relating police misconduct, wrongful conviction, and other public law litigation. For her work, she was recognized as a Public Justice Trial Lawyer of the Year Finalist. She clerked for the Hon. Walter K. Stapleton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. She earned her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she served as student director of the Immigration and Child Advocacy Clinics and won the Michael Egger Prize for the best student article published in the Yale Law Journal on a current social problem. Previously, she served as the Louis A. Horvitz Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and as a Law Research Fellow at Georgetown University.

Education

  • J.D., Yale University (2007)
  • B.A., University of Virginia (2003)

Selected Publications

Arrest Unbound, IOWA L. REV. (forthcoming 2025).

Policing in the Age of Criminal Records, 103 N.C. L. REV. 1441 (2025) (invited symposium contribution). 
Westlaw | Lexis/Nexis | BEPress

Policing the Polity, 131 YALE L.J. 1794 (2022).
Westlaw | Lexis/Nexis | SSRN | Hein | BEPress | Document Link

Jailhouse Immigration Screening, 70 DUKE L.J. 1703 (2021).
Westlaw | Lexis/Nexis | SSRN | Hein | BEPress

The Interior Structure of Immigration Enforcement, 167 U. PA. L. REV. 1463 (2019).
Westlaw | Lexis/Nexis | SSRN | Hein | BEPress

Proportionality and Other Misdemeanor Myths, 98 B.U. L. REV. 953 (2018).
Westlaw | Lexis/Nexis | SSRN | Hein | BEPress

Capitalizing on Criminal Justice, 67 DUKE L.J. 1381 (2018).
Westlaw | Lexis/Nexis | SSRN | Hein | BEPress

Prosecuting Collateral Consequences, 104 GEO. L.J. 1197 (2016).
Westlaw | Lexis/Nexis | SSRN | Hein

Arrests as Regulation, 67 STAN. L. REV. 809 (2015).
Westlaw | Lexis/Nexis | SSRN | Hein | BEPress

Immigration Enforcement and Harboring Doctrine, 24 GEO. IMMIGR. L. J. 147 (2010).
Westlaw | Lexis/Nexis | SSRN | Hein